But that's not what happened at all - you can add custom repositories to F-Droid and use them just fine, just like you can use a web browser to visit other websites. It would be more like if Google kicked them off of Blogspot but you could still use Chrome to visit their website.

It's more like: the website is blocked, but you can go to about:config, set some obscure boolean flag, and then you can access the website.

I disagree - I think we've pushed the website metaphor a bit too far anyway. Let's compare it to a more similar application, the apt package manager. It's a reasonable to debate, but I think a legitimate position for Ubuntu or Debian to not include Gab in their main repository, but allow you to add it as a PPA if you want.

Yeah. If people don't have a problem with gab being blocked on fdroid for essentially dressed-up political reasons, then they also shouldn't have a problem with the play store or apple's app store blocking stuff for political reasons.

This doesn't follow unless you allow the sneaking in of the idea that all political positions must be granted the same affordances regardless of their character. I will not allow that sneaking-in because the idea is nonsense. It's quite reasonable to criticize a company for treating gay people poorly and to also nod in approval when they tell fascists to leave and to not let the door hit them on the way out.

It's also not meaningfully inconsistent for one to do the reverse, but it's telling on yourself.

> all political positions must be granted the same affordances regardless of their character

Sneaking in? That's my point, plain and simple. If anything, you're sneaking in the implication that it's a shameful thing to claim, so I have to "sneak it in".

There's this idea that we should respect the opinions of others, and even defend their right to express them, no matter if we disagree ourselves. In my mind, it's a matter of intellectual honesty. It does seem telling that you might disagree.

Platforming fascists is shameful, yes. It does require a sneaking in of a profound false equivalency to let that kind of assertion stand and I refuse to do so. It, like the fascists in question, can get right out of a functioning body politic, because if it doesn't it won't be functioning much longer.

What will bring down a functioning body politic is the prohibition of unapproved speech. That's what you're advocating.

That is a mendacious lie. You can say what you want, even if it pleases you to empower fascists. I can use my freedom of association to have nothing to do with you or your fellow travelers with similar sympathies. That is how a functioning body politic works.

> you or your fellow travelers with similar sympathies

You seem to have this idea that I'm fascist. Could you give some reference where I said anything that supports this?

> Yeah. If people don't have a problem with gab being blocked on fdroid for essentially dressed-up political reasons, then they also shouldn't have a problem with the play store or apple's app store blocking stuff for political reasons.

I actually don't. They're private businesses and it's clearly true that they already do whatever the heck they want.

My problem is that they make it hard for people to opt in to alternative marketplaces. That is what should be fixed.

The privileged position the Play Store and the App Store have WRT their respective platforms (the App Store in particular) make a fairly strong argument in favor of requiring them to behave as 'common carriers' for apps, but even an extreme version of that view has little to say about a 3rd-party store like fdroid, which really is just one publisher among many.